Mojave Sojourn: Rulers of New Vegas
by Tyr Alexander
Summary: A collection of short entries about the Mojave Wasteland after the NCR and Caesar's Legion have been expelled from the region. Follows the exploits of the Empress of the Mojave and her style of ruling and The Courier King and his mobile court. Warning: two stories being told in non sequential order about two leaders on different timelines. Only connection is the Dam events.


Disclaimer: I don't know own Fallout: New Vegas. If I did, I wouldn't be writing fanfiction for it. Lol

Dutch stared at the Legate. Everyone watching stood stunned. Legion and Mojave residences all dropped their weapons as the two inhumans fought. The Legate rushed in Dutch's direction. With a mighty throw, he sent the Blade of the East sailing through the air, like a makeshift lance, at her. The weapon visibly cut the air as it screamed toward it target. Dutch could only watch as she the sword impaled her through the chest. The force of the weapon was so strong that it continued moving back with her attached to it for several yards. Finally, coming to rest with her on part of the dam. A crimson trail just as long lead from where was standing to where she finally came to rest at. With his opponent pinned Caesar's champion picked up his mask.

"With this victory, the Legion now takes the Dam. Let my opponent know she has in her death earned my respect. With it she has gained mercy for her compatriots," Lanius said as he placed on his mask. The Legate turned to her followers, Cassidy and Arcade. Both were still in shock, just like everyone else, the battle.

"If you swear loyalty to Caesar. I will make a place for you both in his army. A place of honor out of respect for your leader." Lanius said looking at them. Arcade was the first to come to his senses and he quickly shot the Centurion around him and Cassidy. Cassidy smashed a whiskey bottle in one Centurion's head and stabbed another nearby in the eye with broken handle. They fought on until the centurions managed to subdue and disarm them both. Though a lot of them down their numbers were too great. Dutch was their last chance for victory. Without her, Caesar's Legion would claim Hoover Dam and with it the Mojave.

The Legate marched over to the leader remained impaled. "Let them walk the blood mile and be executed in front of the beloved leader." They were dragged before the legate. Every so many steps their faces ground into in the bloody dirt by the centurions. The Legate took the sword of a dead centurion and sighed, "All who don't submit must die. So says Caesar's orders." The centurions all roared their agreement and the Legate's mighty sword arm raised above Arcade. Arcade braced himself. Cassidy turned her eyes away just before it came down. The sound of sharp metal ripping through flesh rung out in her ears and she felt wet drops on her face. A few moments later a heavy thud which she assumed was Arcade's body hitting the ground, followed. She opened her eyes and to her surprise Arcade was still in one piece; no worse for wear. Except maybe the look of shock on his face. What was he staring at so intensely? She followed his eyes to the Legate who seemed to be missing his sword arm as well as bleeding from his chest. She looked passed him. What she saw was unbelievable. Dutch had thrown her one of set of super-heated cosmic knife she fights with at his arm and the other at his chest.

Dutch pulled both the Blade of the East and herself free. With the blade still impaled in her body, she ripped her knife from his chest. Lanius fell to his knees.

"Victory was within my grasp. How could I have lost?"

"You underestimated my drive for victory," Dutch said as she removed the Legate's head from his body. As his head rolled away, he spat angrily, "I will not make that mistake again. You won this day. But the next time we meet…"

"It will be the same," Dutch said as Centurions gathered up his body, head, and arm. Within they sounded the horn of retreat and fled as quickly as they could. Dutch helped up Cassidy and Arcade. Cassidy wrapped her arms around Dutch's side and smiled. "We won!"

Arcade fixed his glasses and sighed, "We aren't going to just let them take him?"

"We haven't time to give chase," Dutch said, "I am feeling a bit woozy. Plus we have the NCR to deal with." Arcade eyed the Blade of the East sticking through her body. "I would imagine so. Let us handle the NCR."

"Arcade volunteering? Now I know I am dead. So this is what victory taste like," Cassidy laughed. Dutch began to laugh but quickly stopped. "Don't make me laugh it hurts."

"Come on. We will take you somewhere and get that removed," Arcade said shaking his head. They headed to the massive double doors of the Legate's camp. Cassidy jogged over to the door controls, only to have an explosion throw her on her back. Unharmed as she looked up from where she landed to see a squad of NCR Rangers enter. Arcade gently put Dutch on her knees so he could go help up Cassidy.

Rangers took up positions around them and pointed their weapons at them. Through the smoke Lee Oliver walked in casually. "Casear on the cross, been a long time since I seen the kind of work to laid down today…a damn long time." He walked further in and surveyed the area.

"And the screams of those legion bastards as they kicked dirt running back east…like a choir of angels to my ears. Speaking of – that lightshow over the Fort, what the fuck was that, some kind of thumb of god you called down? Amazing…fucking amazing."

He walked in further with another three rangers at his back. He turned and looked around. "Could use a hundred of you, just scatter you over the East like jacks, give those plumbed fuck the what-for."

Dutch smiled as she saw Yes Man with a platoon of securitrons wheeling into up into the area. "Hold that thought, General. I want to introduce you to some friends." Lee looked confused until he noticed that his rangers were pointing their high-powered weaponry in the wrong direction. Yes Man and the securitrons wheeled up and took up positions around and in front of Dutch and her companions. Their weapons trained on the NCR Rangers and Lee Oliver.

The look on Lee Oliver's face was priceless as he stammered out, "And…uh…well. These…uh…these boys with you? Hello…there…smiley."

"Mistress you seemed have sustained some injured. Would like me too take you to a medical facility?" Yes Man inquired as rolled closer to her.

"I am fine, Yes Man. However, tend to Cassidy," Dutch smirked as she kept her eyes trained on Lee Oliver.

"Affirmative," he said as he wheeled over to Cassidy and Arcade.

"Guess it ain't no secret how you…uh…I say, can ask them to put their weapons down. Was just reaching into my coat to give you a cigar."

From behind her securitron, Dutch slowly stood up to her feet. Everyone save for the emotionless robots watched with mixed feelings as she pulled the Blade of the East from her body with a free hand. Still coated in her own blood, she pointed it at Lee Oliver.

"The Dam was won…for me. You and the Legion have both lost this day," she declared staring him down. Lee Oliver's face contorted as his mind processed the words she just spoke. He slowly took a cigar from his coat and lite with his lighter. After a few angry puffs later, he tossed it to the ground in front of her.

"How do I put this?" he mumbled out loud, "Oh yes. I would sooner spit on the grave of my dead mother than let some Courier, 'walk-the-wasteland' fuck talk to me like that. Who the hell do you think you are? Looking to cash your chips to the sound of NCR bullets, eh? I can oblige."

Dutch took two steps forward and Lee Oliver took two steps backward. Dutch kept the Blade of the East pointed at him. "The way I see it you have two options. Leave on your feet, or leave wrapped in your flag."

"Look, I know you're riding high now, but let me tell you. You ain't pissing on me now, you're pissing on the Bear. You been far enough west I'm guessing to know how that claw stretches. Fuck with the bear. And…"

"General, no one on holding a weapon at you now is afraid of the NCR. I overcame the great minds of a forgotten era. I was destroyed and remade a new. I resurrected myself like Lazarus in the fabled Sierra Madre. I walked the red cloud as it eat at my flesh and healed me over and over. I walked the Divide's Lonesome Road alone and survived not only the monsters that dwell there but its angry weather. I fought the Legate, the monster of the East on his own terms alone. I was impaled by said Legate and left for dead. But I still managed to decapitate him and claim his weapon as my own. In short, General, I don't give a damn about the claws of the bear. Because after waking up after a bullet to the skull, I have meet, survived, and overcame far worse thing than the bear could ever hope to be."

Lee Oliver couldn't stop his fist from baling up. Arcade could help but feel inspired and Cassidy. Well just was over the moon now that the NCR was finally getting it just desserts after all the shit it has done. The Rangers looked to Lee Oliver for orders. "You are pissing on the bear," he repeated over and over. His mind quickly trying to work out a strategy that could get him out of this predicament with both his life and the dam for the bear. With each new scenario he ran in his head, he lost either his life or the dam.

Dutch rolled her eyes and spoke again, "General, the republic has over-stayed its welcome – this land is mine."

"You want me to make tracks out of here, head back west, tail between our legs?" No, I came looking for a fight today, and if you're going to make me budge, you better have a damn good left hook or I'm not going anywhere."

Dutch started laughing, "You seriously think that these robots are all the forces I have?"

"Right now, they're all that standing here – well, except for the corpses. So what your plan, hold the dam here all by your lonesome?"

Dutch stopped laughing, her smiled remained despite the pain she was feeling, "While the Boomers fly West? Works for me."

"They wouldn't," Lee countered, the uncertainty in his voice was clear.

"I don't know. Mean who's to say? I just suggested coming to Hoover Dam to them … and BOOM."

Lee closed his eyes as he turned his head away. He looked back at her, "This has been a fuck of a day. Do you know what you are doing? Making a nation – like you think you're doing, ain't like chowing down on a pile of Fancy Lad Snack Cakes. Think you got the guts to carve out a frontier? Build towns, protect the roads, run supplies, train troops?"

"Honestly? Can't do a worse a job than the Republic, that's for damn sure."

Lee Oliver took of his hat and threw it to the ground, "Hell! Can't believe we got suckered by some road jockey. Should've watched the flank while Casear's best was making all that noise." He pointed at her with a vicious glare, "I know what those robots of yours can do on a bad day, and I'm not eager to toss lives at them just to make a point. But if you're taking this place, you better hope you can hold it. I'll give my superiors my opinion, but I don't think they're going to listen. So if the NCR comes at you, and it will, pray you're ready. I promise you, our situations reversed, I'd see you hang."

Dutch frowned. Arcade and Cassidy shook their heads in unison. "He's done it," he whispered to her.

"Yup. He was so close to keeping his life."

Dutch continued to frown, "I see. Yes Man!" Yes Man wheeled over to her, "Mistress?"

"Please throw General Oliver from the Dam."

Several more securitrons quickly grabbed the General by the arms and hoisted him into the air. "What the hell? No, get away from me, you goddamn TV on wheels." The securitrons held the Rangers at gun point as the two securitrions carted Lee Oliver away to his death. It didn't take look before his dying screams echoed over the valley.

"Rangers of the NCR tell your Republic of what transpired this day. But make haste…if three days hence I find a single soldier of Bear within the Mojave I will march west. I will march with everything I have and I will turn the Bear into a smoking pile of ash."

"They will want a name," the Ranger commander said as his men filed out.

"Tell them, Dutch Holiday, Empress of the Mojave, is my name." The rangers disappeared out of the camp and Arcade walked over to Dutch with Cassidy in tow.

Dutch, used the Blade of the East, as a walking stick to stay upright. "I don't know how you did it but you did?" Cassidy said looking at her and the securitrons.

"Empress, huh? Why not goddess?" Arcade said poking fun at her.

"I thought about it. I don't want to sound too powerful," she said with a laugh. She clutched her side. "Oh shit that hurts. I maybe immortal but damn shit if I don't still feel pain."

"This way mistress we will get you stitched up and you can began."

"Yeah began."

"Don't worry you have your friends to help you rebuilt towns and train troops."

"And I don't know much about construction but I know how to move a caravan and shoot an asshole if he trying to steal from me."

"Good because I am going to need your help."

Author Notes:

Special thanks to OB1 Me for giving me the push to start this one

this is the same Dutch from the Legend of Dead .

Review!

Editor wanted!

Next Up is the Courier King and His Mobile Court.

Omakes! Send my way and I will post them up.


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